one hot summer (9 page)

This time, the American had to wait for the Cuban.

Luther was sitting in the middle of the blue three-seater bench in front of the wrought-iron gate that led to the docks, between Pier 6 and Pier 7. He was engrossed with looking out to sea and didn’t notice me arriving. Knowing that parking legally at Dinner Key Marina was next to impossible, and not wanting to keep Luther waiting any longer, I steered the Escalade into an empty spot with a big official sign warning “Marina Decal Parking Only.” The sign was intimidating, suggesting death or severe injury for violators, but I decided to take a chance and leave my car, without the sacrosanct decal, there.

Dinner Key was the isthmus jutting off Coconut Grove, and housed the mayor of Miami’s offices. The Art Deco two-story whitewashed building with sky-blue accents had become a famous image during the Elian Gonzalez fiasco. Irate Miamians had thrown bananas at the mayor’s office door when he openly defied a government order demanding his cooperation in removing the six-year-old boy from his relatives before being returned to Cuba. The fruity projectiles symbolized people’s anger that the mayor was making Miami look like a banana republic. It wasn’t a high point in Miami history, but then nothing about the Elian Gonzalez tragedy had been a high point. Ever since then, I hadn’t been able to go to Dinner Key Marina without thinking about the whole disgraceful mess.

There wasn’t much I could do about my looks just then, so I settled for a quick spritz of Chanel No. 5. I decided to think like the French, and hope that perfume would mask all the ills of the world. When I got out of the car, the sound of the door closing made Luther turn around.

“Daisy!” he called out to me.

He was dressed in a khaki suit much like the one he’d worn the day before, and he looked a little out of place in such casual surroundings. It was close to a hundred degrees in the afternoon heat, but Luther looked nice and cool in his suit and tie. I had no idea how he did it. He got up and met me, taking my arm and leading me back to the bench where he had been waiting. He waited for me to choose a seat before lowering his lanky body next to mine.

“It’s beautiful here, Daisy,” Luther said. The wind kicked up, swirling the air around us. “Still using Chanel No. 5. It always makes me think of you.”

I blushed, knowing I’d overdone it on the perfume. Then I wondered if that was all we were going to talk about, there in the sweltering heat. I could feel a hint of anxiety inside my stomach, and I was very aware of Luther’s physical proximity to me.

“Are there always this many boats docked here?” Luther asked, gesturing to the docks in front of us, where every slip was occupied. I didn’t remember Luther ever showing much interest in boats before. Durham, North Carolina, hadn’t been a hot spot for nautical pursuits.

I didn’t believe we were there to talk about my perfume, or about boats, and then a thought occurred to me: Luther was as nervous as I was, and couldn’t get around to what he wanted to talk about. If that was true, then I was going to be sick. Luther had ice water in his veins. He was cool and unemotional even by American standards.

I decided to humor him. I didn’t feel as if I was operating from a position of strength, not the way I looked.

“There are always lot of boats here,” I said. “Some people even live on them.”

Luther nodded sagely, as though this nugget of information had cleared up a lot of questions for him.

“Must be nice,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“You know, being able to do that.”

We watched the pelicans perched on the channel markers at the edge of the marina, cackling and preening. Sometimes they would stretch in preparation for swooping down on a hapless fish that had made the mistake of swimming too close to the water’s surface. It always amazed me that those ungainly beasts could actually fly, with their huge beaks and pouches underneath, and that they were actually graceful when they did, skimming the water with their wide wings extended.

I sneaked a look at my watch and saw that we had been sitting there for fifteen minutes. It looked like it was up to me. I was the mother of a three-year-old, after all, and couldn’t disappear in midafternoon two days in a row without coming up with some kind of explanation.

“Luther, you said it was important that we meet today,” I began, as gently as I could.

He turned to me with a deer-in-the-headlights stare. He suddenly acted as though he would prefer a root canal to telling me what he had to say.

“I did.” He paused, took a deep breath. His eyes were bluer than ever. “I have a confession, Daisy. I didn’t come to Miami because of a case.”

“Then…”

“I’m working a case here, that’s true,” Luther said hastily.

“All right,” I said, taking all this in. Luther took another deep breath, and I could see him steadying himself for whatever he had to say next.

“But I’ve come to Miami on the case more than a dozen times in the past five years. I’ve been coming down here for years, I just haven’t contacted you before.”

“You chose to call me now?” I asked. “That seems strange to me.”

A sheepish expression came over his face. “Look, I don’t want you to think I’m a stalker or anything.”

“Luther, I didn’t say that.”

Apparently he was reassured. “I know,” he said quietly. “But there’s something else. Before, when you were working at the firm, I could see you without your spotting me.”

“You were…watching me?”

“Look, Daisy, this is really difficult.” Luther looked out over the water. He had gone this far, and it was painful for me to watch him struggling with himself.

“Just tell me,” I said.

“I would watch you as you went in and out of your office building,” Luther offered, wincing a little.

I didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. I knew Luther too well to think that there was anything creepy or unsavory behind what he was saying. Still, I was really too shocked to react.

“Luther, help me out here,” I said. “I don’t understand this. Why…why did you watch me?”

I saw Luther conducting an internal monologue with himself, his lawyer’s training weighing how to present his information to make his case. Displays of vulnerability were not part of Luther’s character, although I had seen more in the last five minutes than I ever recalled from our dating days.

“Look, it’s like this. Even after we broke up, I still kept track of you and what you were doing.” Luther looked into my eyes, then away. “And I knew there were solid, practical reasons for our breaking up. Believe me, I used to repeat them to myself over and over. But it didn’t matter, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I dated a lot, and I got involved with a couple of women. But I wanted you, Daisy. All this time.”

Luther gently took my hand in his. I just watched him, almost feeling like my hand belonged to someone else. It was awkward, and almost uncomfortable, to be sitting there with our arms outstretched between us, our palms damp and sweaty. The oversize diamond wedding band on my finger was digging into both his and my flesh. Perhaps the ring awakened Luther to reality, because he suddenly released my hand.

“It was about a year after we split that I was assigned to a case and sent down here,” Luther said. “We had agreed not to have any contact, and I had no idea how you felt about me. So I asked around about you. It broke my heart when I found out that you were engaged to marry a Cuban attorney, and so I didn’t try to get in touch with you.”

I sat there, stunned, pondering how all this went on without my knowledge.

“Then, the next time I came down, I found out that you had already gotten married to him.”

I could hear the pain in Luther’s voice. I had figured he had gotten on with his life after our breakup. Part of me didn’t think that WASPs felt much of anything too deeply, and that Luther would have moved on to a whole new life without me. I looked at Luther and wondered: If I hadn’t been engaged to Ariel the first time Luther came to Miami, and if he had contacted me, then how differently would our lives have been? And what if he had called me while I was engaged to Ariel, but not yet married?

Luther shook his head and laughed softly, with a look of admiration in his eyes that confused me.

“I must say, Daisy, you follow through with your intentions.” Luther looked off into the distance. “You said one of the reasons you wanted to stay in Miami was that you wanted to integrate yourself into the community. That you wanted to be and feel more Cuban, after seven years away at Penn and Duke. Well, you achieved your goal. And I know you probably couldn’t have gotten there with me.”

It was my turn to reach for his hand, this time with the one that had no ring on it.

“Luther, I don’t know what to say,” I paused. “I mean, you’ve taken me by surprise with this. All of it.”

I shifted to face him.

“But there’s one thing I don’t understand,” I told him. “After six years, after watching me from afar, why did you contact me this time?”

The heat was starting to feel punishing, and in the harsh afternoon sunlight I saw a slight sheen of moisture come over Luther’s face. I was hot enough in my cotton T-shirt, so he must have been sweltering in his suit. And, of course, this conversation couldn’t have been helping matters.

“I know this is going to sound stupid,” he said. “But you haven’t been going to work for close to a year now. Ever since you took your leave of absence, I haven’t had an opportunity to see you.”

Luther took out a handkerchief and wiped his face. “Excuse me,” he said. “It’s so hot, I can’t help it.”

Americans, especially northerners, don’t do well in Miami’s oppressive summer climate. Even I was starting to feel a slight trickle of sweat running down my back. I was glad to be wearing a white shirt, since it wouldn’t show any sweat stains. I was a firm believer in never letting them see me sweat.

We were sitting ramrod straight on either end of that royal-blue wooden bench; Luther and I probably looked like two strangers who had just happened to take a rest to admire the scene at the marina. We were the only people around, and our only company was two mangy cats napping under a red pickup truck parked across the road. Even the pelicans had retired to whatever shelter they sought during the hottest part of the day.

But Luther and I, two Ivy-League graduates and attorneys, weren’t so smart as that. We chose to sweat out the largest issues of our lives in the harsh sun of a South Florida summer’s day.

“I couldn’t think of any way to see you, other than just calling you,” Luther said. “And I was beginning to feel like a total idiot. I used to wait mornings in the coffee shop across the street from your building, just to catch a glimpse of you parking your car and going inside.”

I pictured what Luther had just said. It was hard to imagine him pining away in loneliness, a forlorn character watching me from afar. But I could tell from his tone that it was the truth.

“You used to wait in the coffee shop and watch me cross the street from the parking lot?” I pictured the coffee shop, a greasy spoon owned by Cubans. I knew how clear his line of sight would be from one of the tables by the front window.

“Thank God you’re so punctual,” he said with a low chuckle. “Always in your office by eight thirty, otherwise I might never have been able to see you.” Luther seemed to ease up a little, as though the more he talked about his actions, the more he became comfortable with them. “A couple of times I tried to see you coming out, but it was impossible. Daisy, you were sure keeping some late hours. I thought no one outside of New York worked as hard as that.”

“Luther, you have to understand this is hard for me to absorb.”

“I know, Daisy. I know it’s a lot.”

I didn’t want to scare Luther off by reacting too negatively, but I also needed for him to understand that this was a bombshell. Luther had apparently been devoting so much time and energy to thinking about me, that he had forgotten he had no idea where my thoughts were going. All those days in the office, all those nights with Ariel and Marti.

“I had no idea you were even thinking about me at all in the years since we broke up,” I told him. “And your watching me from the coffee shop without ever letting me know…do you have any idea how that sounds?”

“It sounds crazy,” Luther said firmly. “I know that. But I need to be honest with you now, Daisy. I want you to know that this declaration isn’t just coming out of nowhere. I’ve been thinking about you for years.”

“Declaration?” I asked him. “What declaration?”

Luther’s Adam’s apple jumped. Now he was really sweating.

“Daisy, I made a huge mistake when I agreed with you that our relationship should end. When we left Duke, you were so set on coming back here that you never considered any other options. You never even talked to any of the law-firm recruiters from anyplace other than Miami. It was clear where you were going and, try as I might, I simply couldn’t picture myself living here.”

“You were as set on New York as I was on Miami,” I pointed out.

“I know.” Luther spoke slowly, measuring every word. “When I think back on that time, I know that I was in love with you from the day I met you. But the fact that you were always returning to Miami held me back.”

“We never really talked about it,” I said.

“What could I do? Move here with you?” he asked. “Where would that leave me? Tagging along after you? The pussy-whipped gringo?”

“Luther!” I was shocked more by his sentiment than by his choice of words. Never before had this man given me a hint about a more passionate side to his personality. The only time he had ever let go was in bed with me: Otherwise he was always calm, cool, composed. It was confusing. And a little exciting.

“Sorry, Daisy. But that’s the way it felt. You come from a macho culture. Men are supposed to lead women, not the other way around. I knew I would command zero respect if I followed you to Miami. And I would have no ties of my own to anyone. I didn’t speak Spanish. I knew I would just be a drag on you if I came along.”

There was really nothing to say. Luther was right. Just then we heard the full, rich sound of a boat’s engine starting. A few moments later a man emerged on the deck of a Hatteras that was docked just inside the gated area of Pier 7. I had noticed the boat walking up, and admired the pristine condition in which it was kept.